Big West schedule is big issue for SDSU

“I see both sides,” said Long Beach State coach Dan Monson, whose 49ers were Big West champions and lost to New Mexico in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. “I understand what (Fisher) is saying, but why are you in a league then? The league is a group of guys who are going to play each other.

“I know this. If SDSU comes into our league and I only get to play them once (in a season), that’s a bad deal. They help our RPI. It’s a marquee game for us.”

The joke among college basketball coaches is that the only thing harder than winning on the road is mastering the delicate art of scheduling. And that doesn’t mean amassing a bunch of Ws against weak opponents.

Last season, Cal State Fullerton won 21 games but had the nation’s 316th-rated strength of schedule. The Titans’ final RPI was No. 157, or three spots below a 12-18 Nebraska team that played the 46th toughest schedule (and fired its coach).

“The key to establishing yourself as an at-large team (for the NCAA Tournament) is building a strong nonconference schedule,” said Doug Elgin, commissioner of the Missouri Valley Conference. “The selection committee won’t penalize you for being in a weak league. Where they will penalize you is if your nonconference strength of schedule is weak.”

Elgin should know. He took the 10-team Missouri Valley from a single-bid league to one that has received as many as four. It didn’t happen overnight, and it took a significant financial commitment from the member schools, but he credits strategic scheduling as an important component.

Elgin wouldn’t divulge details of what he calls “unpublished scheduling guidelines,” but Missouri Valley teams are known to face a $100,000 penalty for playing non-Div. I teams (Big West teams can schedule two per season). The Missouri Valley also actively discourages one-off “guarantee games,” where a big-name opponent pays you to play on its home floor, and encourages neutral court games against top teams instead.

The difference, of course, is that Missouri Valley teams aren’t taking a major RPI hit once they reach league play.

Take Long Beach State. It had the nation’s toughest nonconference schedule last season after playing Pittsburgh, SDSU, Louisville, North Carolina, Kansas and Creighton – all on the road. The 49ers went 18-1 against Big West teams, but their overall strength of schedule dropped to 121st and they got a No. 12 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

“I’m not disregarding Fish’s concerns, because I have the same ones,” Long Beach State’s Monson said. “But I’m probably not as vocal as him because I signed up for a job in the Big West Conference and I play who they tell me to play. He didn’t take a job in the Big West. His concerns are more legitimate than mine.”